Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/News Briefs/Workspace/archive/July19-24

July 19, 2010

 * Hmmm, morbid news day today. Turtlestack (talk) 20:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thus, today will be a nice This Day In History :) Turtlestack (talk) 00:09, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I combined a lot of stories here - 2 about the gulf, 2 in Mexico, and the Iran and Iraq stories. I also added Australian federal election announced for August 21 for a bit more of a "positive" and Australian lead out at the end of the show. Really, it's just for style purposes in case you are wondering since normally I don't add in stories from over the weekend. Today is sort of an exception. Turtlestack (talk) 01:02, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Today on Wikinews
Leaks at the well cap and on the sea floor have been detected in the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill; violence continues in Iraq, Mexico and in Iran; India experiences yet another deadly train derailment and, in history, the Iroquois Confederacy attempt to strike a deal with The Crown.

Oil spewing from crack in seafloor of Gulf of Mexico was fifty feet from Deepwater Horizon well, ROV detects leaks in Deepwater Horizon well cap

 * Will combine these two since they are related. Turtlestack (talk) 19:25, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

After an investigation, Wikinews has learned that oil spewing from a rupture in the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico on June 13 was 50 to 60 feet from the Deepwater Horizon leak.

A nearly four and a half minute video posted on YouTube from the Viking Poseidon ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) 1 shows oil and methane leaking from the seafloor at around 2:48 a.m. on June 13. In the video, the ROV monitors the leak for a minute and even gets covered in a plume of oil and sand before it moved on to the next spot. Smaller eruptions were seen as the ROV traveled, making the leak locations vary from 50 to 60 feet from the damaged well.

Until now, there was no way to determine the location of the ROVs in relation to the previously leaking Deepwater Horizon well. However Alexander Higgins, an independent computer programmer, developed the 'Gulf Oil Spill ROV UTM Distance Calculator.' Using the coordinates for the location of the Deepwater Horizon, and the location of the Viking Poseidon on June 13, Wikinews  was able to determine that the first rupture and leak was approximately 50.45 feet from the leaking well or "21.56 feet North and 45.61 feet West" of the Deepwater leak point.

Higgins told Wikinews how he created the calculator, and says it is "very accurate," but that the tool would "not give you accurate measurements over a large distance, EG from the well head to New Orleans."

"This tool was created using java script that uses basic Pythagorean theorem (A2 + B2 = C2) to calculate the distance between two points. ROV coordinates match the location within a few feet when looking at the well because obviously the ROV can not be over the exact center because that is where the BOP is," said Higgins.

On Sunday, Wikinews contacted BP, who authenticated the video, and asked if any ROVs were sent back to the crack and leak location on June 13 for further investigation. According to their office in London, England, they "sent ROVs to investigate and monitor that and no further signs of oil or gas were found." They also stated that they "have continued to monitor" and "have also carried out seismic surveys. Nothing found to give concern." Wikinews also asked if they could confirm the location of the leak and crack, but no response was given.

Yesterday an unnamed United States official told the Associated Press that there was "seepage" coming from the area at the bottom of the Deepwater well head. The official said the seepage and methane gas were discovered near the Deepwater well head, but did not specify an exact location. Admiral Thad Allen, a former US Coast Guard admiral who is overseeing the spill efforts for the US government said yesterday in a letter to BP that ROVs "detected seep a distance from the well and undetermined anomalies at the well head."

As many as four leaks have been detected in the Deepwater Horizon well cap. The HOS SUPER H ROV 1 made the discovery while performing an "integrity survey" of the well and well cap. It recorded what appears to be a thin metal pipe lining the outside of the oil cap. Four small leaks of what appear to oil bubbles were detected during this survey. The first appears just after the elbow connecting the pipe to the two green pipes. The second can be seen through the hole of the large metal ring. The third is seen just to the right of the metal ring.

So far there is no word what those substances are, but BP says bubbles detected on July 18 are not of a hydrocarbon nature.

It is not yet known what the pipe carries or what they connect to. It is also not yet clear if all leaks are from the pipe, or leaking from the well. BP confirmed the leaks and told Wikinews in a phone call to their Houston, Texas press office, there is a "small leak" releasing hydrates consisting of gases and oil. They are "studying the issue" and are prepared to fix the pipe if it becomes an issue. Live camera feeds show hydrocarbons builing up as the oil and gas leak from the pipe.

Since the June 13 video surfaced, other videos have been posted to YouTube allegedly showing some of the ROVs being tossed around by large amounts of oil leaking through the seafloor. One video showed an alleged eruption spraying oil and debris around the BOA DEEP C 2 ROV before it was tossed from side to side. It then immediately retreated to the surface.

Some of the cracks on ocean floors, where oil has leaked from, have occurred naturally. One such oil spill in California in 2005 was the result of a naturally occurring crack in the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Some of those cracks can cause oil to leak through at a rate as high as 5,000 gallons a day, with most of the oil not even reaching the water's surface. In the Gulf of Mexico, oil could leak through natural cracks at a rate of up to 150,000 gallons when comparing it to the amount of oil that leaked from the Deepwater well.

Wikinews contacted BP and asked if any ROVs were sent back to the crack and leak location on June 13 for further investigation. According to their office in London, England, they "sent ROVs to investigate and monitor that and no further signs of oil or gas were found." They also stated that they "have continued to monitor" and "have also carried out seismic surveys. Nothing found to give concern." Wikinews also asked if they could confirm the location of the leak and crack, but no response was given.

According to Cutler Cleveland, a Boston University professor at the university's Department of Geography and Environment, "The Deepwater Horizon site releases 3 to 12 times the oil per day compared to that released by natural seeps across the entire Gulf of Mexico. By May 30, the Deepwater Horizon site had released between 468,000 and 741,000 barrels of oil, compared to 60,000 to 150,000 barrels from natural seeps across the entire Gulf of Mexico over the same 39 day period".

BP capped the leaking well on July 13 which effectively stopped oil from leaking into the Gulf. The company has been running a pressure integrity test on the 150,000 pound cap for 48 hours. Earlier on July 17, they announced the test would continue for another day. BP hopes for the well's pressure to rise to or above 7,500 PSI. As of Saturday morning the well's pressure was just above 6,700 PSI. BP fears anything lower than the expected PSI could mean a leak in the cap or elsewhere, such as oil or methane seeping up from the seafloor.

Thad Allen was quoted as saying "We are feeling more comfortable we have integrity. We will keep monitoring and make the decisions as we go forward. The longer the test goes the more confidence we have in it".

43 dead in Iraqi bomb blast, 27 reported dead in Iranian suicide bombings
A suicide bomber killed 43 people in Iraq Sunday, injuring an estimated 40 more.

The attack occurred southwest of Baghdad and targeted members of a government-backed militia, Sons of Iraq, also known as the Sahwa, who were waiting to collect their pay. Early reports say the attacks killed at least three soldiers and injured an additional thirteen, while three accountants died and four more were wounded. It's not yet clear who the remaining casualties are.

A survivor of the bombing said that "[t]here were more than 85 people lined up in three lines at the main gate of the military base to receive salaries when a person approached us. When one of the soldiers tried to stop him, he blew himself up."

An Iraqi military official said that "[t]he suicide bomber blew himself up in the biggest group of Sahwa members. We generally let them enter the base in groups of 10 for them to get their salaries."

A second suicide bombing took place in Western Iraq, when an attacker fired upon Sahwa militants in Al-Qa'im before blowing himself up, killing three people, with six more injured.

Credit for the attacks has not yet been claimed, but al-Qaeda is considered the probable culprit.

The Sahwa movement is a Sunni militia group that split from al-Qaeda in 2006, and with US support have been one of the groups fighting al-Qaeda. In recent months, members of the militia have said that they have come under attack from other militant groups, and support from the Iraqi government has been reduced.

The attack comes just a day after two suicide bombers detonated bombs at a mosque in southeastern Iran today, killing 27 and leaving several hundred more injured.

The explosions occurred moments apart at a Shia mosque, killing both civilians and government officials from Iran's Revolutionary Guards. 27 people are confirmed dead, while reports of injuries totaled 270, and officials said the death toll is likely to rise.

The attacks were reportedly carried out by a Sunni rebel group, Jundallah, who said it was in retaliation for the execution of the group's leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, by the Iranian government in June.

The Revolutionary Guard's top official, Yadollah Javani, blamed the United States, Israel, and Europeean countries for the attacks, citing testimony offered by Rigi before he was executed that claimed Jundallah had received aid from Western powers.

Gunmen kill seventeen at party in Mexico, Car bomb in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico kills several, many injured
gunmen on Sunday stormed a party in Torreon, a city in the north of Mexico. According to local authorities, at least eighteen people were injured, and seventeen died. The victims have not yet been identified, but several were young and some were women.

According to a statement from the Coahuila state Attorney General's office, the gunmen arrived in several cars and opened fire without saying a word. This happened after a similar shooting last month, in which eight people were killed at a bar, in the same city. In all of northern Mexico there are increasing reports of mass shootings at parties, bars and rehab clinics.

Investigators do not yet have any suspects and do not know the motive, but believe that the shooting may be linked to Mexico's long-running drugs war. Police found more than 120 bullet casings at the scene, the majority of which were from .223 caliber guns.

The shooting follows the expolison of a car bomb last Thursday in a violent area of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico killing two police officers, a paramedic, and one civilian, although Mayor Jose Reyes said that only three died. At least six others were injured, although reports have said the total injured may be as high as sixteen. Four remain in the hospital, including three paramedics and one civilian.

Mexican authorities say it was a car bomb, but counter-terrorism experts are still unsure as to what caused the vehicle to explode. Intelligence expert Fred Burton said, "For this to be an improvised grenade attack, in some capacity, it doesn't surprise me."

The Juarez cartel, one of the two drug-traffickers in the area, claimed responsibility for the bombing in a graffiti message. "We have more car bombs," the graffiti said.

Ciudad Juárez has a history for trafficking drugs to the United States, especially into Texas.

Before the explosion, the police arrested a suspected leader of the Juarez cartel, Jesus Armando Acosta Guerrero.

This year more than 7,000 people have died as a result of drug-related violence in Mexico since this year began. Attorney General Arturo Chavez on Friday said nearly 25,000 people have died in the last three and a half year period.

On This Day In History
The Deed from the Five Nations to the King, of their Beaver Hunting Ground, more commonly known as the Nanfan Treaty, was conducted in Albany, New York, on July 19, 1701.

The treaty was an agreement made between the representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy with John Nanfan, the acting colonial governor of New York, on behalf of the The Crown. The Iroquois, who claimed to have conquered this territory 80 years earlier, deeded the English a large tract of land north of the Ohio River when the Iroquois were allied with the English during King William's War, the first of the French and Indian Wars.

As a vast majority of the Beaver Hunting Grounds described in the Nanfan Treaty were located in New France, the area colonized by France in North America, the French did not recognize this as a valid treaty. However, at the time, the Iroquois were also negotiating peace with the French and together they signed the Great Peace of Montreal later that same year. That treaty ended 100 years of war between the Iroquois, whom had been allied to the English, and the French, allied to the Hurons and the Algonquians. It provided 16 years of peaceful relations and trade before war started again.

The Iroquois, also known as the Haudenosaunee, the "People of the Longhouse" or more accurately, "They Are Building a Long House" and are actually an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America. After the Iroquoian-speaking peoples coalesced as distinct tribes, based mostly in present-day upstate New York, around the 16th century they came together in an association known today as the Iroquois League, or the "League of Peace and Power". The original Iroquois League was often known as the Five Nations, as it was comprised of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations. After the Tuscarora nation joined the League in 1722, the Iroquois became known as the Six Nations.

The Iroquois League has also been known as the Iroquois Confederacy, a decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization. The League still exists, but the Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War.

The Iroquois were a mix of farmers, fishers, gatherers, and hunters, though their main diet came from farming. The main crops they farmed were corn, beans and squash, which were called the three sisters and were considered special gifts from the Creator. These crops are grown strategically. The cornstalks grow, the bean plants climb the stalks, and the squash grow beneath, inhibiting weeds and keeping the soil moist under the shade of their broad leaves. In this combination, the soil remained fertile for several decades. The food was stored during the winter, and it lasts for two to three years. When the soil eventually lost its fertility, the Iroquois migrated.

Since they had no writing system, the Iroquois depended upon the spoken word to pass down their history, traditions, and rituals. As an aid to memory, the Iroquois used shells and shell beads. The Europeans called the beads wampum, from wampumpeag, a word used by Indians in the area who spoke Algonquian languages.

The type of wampum most commonly used in historic times was bead wampum, cut from various seashells, ground and polished, and then bored through the center with a small hand drill. The purple and white beads, made from the shell of the quahog clam, were arranged on belts in designs representing events of significance.

Certain elders were designated to memorize the various events and treaty articles represented on the belts. These men could "read" the belts and reproduce their contents with great accuracy. The belts were stored at Onondaga, the capital of the confederacy, in the care of a designated wampum keeper.

Women assumed a position in Iroquois society roughly equal in power to that of the men. Individual women could hold property including dwellings, horses and farmed land, and their property before marriage stayed in their possession without being mixed with that of their husband's. The work of a woman's hands was hers to do with as she saw fit. The chief of a clan could be removed at any time by a council of the mothers of that clan, and the chief's sister was responsible for nominating his successor.

The Iroquois aimed to create an empire by incorporating conquered peoples and remolding them into Iroquois and thus naturalizing them as full citizens of the tribe. By 1668, two-thirds of the Oneida village were assimilated Algonquians and Hurons and at Onondaga there were Native Americans of seven different nations and among the Seneca eleven.

In the last few decades, some historians have stressed "The Iroquois Influence Thesis" in relation to the development of the Articles of Confederation or United States Constitution. Consensus has not been reached on how influential the Iroquois model was to the development of the United States' documents, however, historians Donald Grinde and Bruce Johansen believed that the democratic ideals of the Great Law of Peace, the oral constitution whereby the Iroquois Confederacy was bound together, provided a significant inspiration to Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and other framers of the United States Constitution. The standing of the Influence Thesis was demonstrated by the United States Congress' passing a resolution in October 1988 that specifically recognized the influence of the Iroquois League upon the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

While anthropologist Dean Snow believes "There is, however, little or no evidence that the framers of the Constitution sitting in Philadelphia drew much inspiration from the League", Benjamin Franklin wrote in volume 4 of his published papers that "It would be a very strange thing, if six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such a Union … and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a Dozen English Colonies".

Interestingly, the Iroquois government has issued passports since around at least 1923, when Haudenosaunee authorities issued a passport to Cayuga statesman Deskaheh (Levi General) to travel to the League of Nations headquarters. Before 2001 these passports were accepted by various nations for international travel, but with increased security concerns across the world since the 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, this is no longer the case.

The Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team was allowed by the U.S. to travel on their own passports to an international lacrosse tournament in England after the personal intervention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on July 14, 2010. But, the British government refused to recognize the Iroquois passports and denied the team members entry into the United Kingdom.

July 20, 2010
Uh-oh, today is the anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. I really should have planned ahead for this one. Turtlestack (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

On this day in history

 * Music credit Space X-plorers

On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 space flight landed the first humans on our Moon, fulfilling U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon before the Soviets by the end of the 1960s.

Launched from Florida on July 16, Apollo 11 was crewed by Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. Their landing craft, Eagle, spent 21 hours and 31 minutes on the lunar surface while Collins orbited above in the command ship, Columbia. The lunar module was named Eagle for the national bird of the United States, the bald eagle, which is featured prominently on the mission insignia.


 * Audio clip Aldrin on emblems

The command module was named Columbia for the feminine personification of the United States used traditionally in song and poetry. During early mission planning, the names Snowcone and Haystack were used but changed before announcement to the press.

Three days after liftoff, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. In the thirty orbits that followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility. This landing site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers along with the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft and was unlikely to present major landing or extra-vehicular activity (EVA) challenges.


 * Audio clip Interloper

On July 20, 1969 the lunar module Eagle separated from the command module Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged.

As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found that they were passing landmarks on the surface 4 seconds early and reported that they were "long": meaning they would land miles west of their target point.

Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above the surface of the moon, the LM navigation and guidance computer distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected "1202" and "1201" program alarms.


 * Audio credit [File:AP11 FINAL APPROACH.ogv 1201 alarm]

The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", where the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them. This was neither a computer error nor an astronaut error, but stemmed from a mistake in how the astronauts had been trained. Although unneeded for the landing, the rendezvous radar was intentionally turned on to make ready for a fast abort. Ground simulation setups had not foreseen that a fast stream of spurious interrupts from this radar could happen, depending upon how the hardware randomly powered up before the LM then began nearing the lunar surface: hence the computer had to deal with data from two radars, not the landing radar alone, which led to the overload.

Inside Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, computer engineer Jack Garman told guidance officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent and this was relayed to the crew.

When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 300 meter diameter crater (later determined to be "West crater", named for its location in the western part of the originally planned landing ellipse). At this point Armstrong took semi-automatic control as Aldrin called out altitude and velocity data.


 * Audio credit 1201 alarm
 * Audio credit Cronkite speech

Eagle landed at 6:17pm EDT with only about 25 seconds of fuel left. This was less fuel than on later missions because the astronauts encountered a premature low fuel warning. This was later found to have been due to greater propellant 'slosh' than expected uncovering a fuel sensor. On subsequent missions, extra baffles were added to the tanks to prevent this.


 * Music credit Albinoni - Concerto for 2 Oboes

Then at 10:39pm EDT, Armstrong opened the hatch, and at 10:51 began his descent to the Moon's surface.


 * Audio credit [File:A11v 1092338.ogg Armstrong stepping off the lander]

Aldrin then joined Armstrong on the surface and tested methods for moving around, including two-footed kangaroo hops. The astronauts reported that they needed to plan their movements six or seven steps ahead and that the fine soil was quite slippery. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into Eagle's shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, though the helmet was warmer in sunlight.

The astronauts then deployed scientific equipment, which included a passive seismograph and a laser ranging retroreflector. While Armstrong loped about 120 m from the LM to snap photos at the rim of Little West Crater, Aldrin collected two core tubes. He used the geological hammer to pound in the tubes - the only time the hammer was used on Apollo 11. The astronauts then collected rock samples using scoops and tongs on extension handles. Many of the surface activities took longer than expected, so they had to stop documenting sample collection halfway through the allotted 34 min.

During this period Mission Control used a coded phrase to warn Armstrong that his metabolic rates were high and that he should slow down. He was moving rapidly from task to task as time ran out. However, as metabolic rates remained generally lower than expected for both astronauts throughout the walk, Mission Control granted the astronauts a 15-minute extension.

After the astronauts planted a U.S. flag on the lunar surface, they spoke with President Richard Nixon through a telephone-radio transmission which Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House."


 * Audio credit Astronauts and Nixon

Nixon originally had a long speech prepared to read during the phone call, but fellow astronaut Frank Borman who flew on the famous Apollo 8 mission, was at the White House as a NASA liaison during Apollo 11 and convinced Nixon to keep his words brief, out of respect of the lunar landing being Kennedy's legacy.


 * Audio clip Orange Horizon

For the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, a group of British scientists reflected on the significance of the moon landing:

"It was carried out in a technically brilliant way with risks taken ... that would be inconceivable in the risk-averse world of today...The Apollo programme is arguably the greatest technical achievement of mankind to date...nothing since Apollo has come close [to] the excitement that was generated by those astronauts - Armstrong, Aldrin and the 10 others who followed them"

Walter Cronkite famously said years later that he had had as much time to prepare for the moon landing as NASA, but when the mission finally landed safely, he was left speechless. Considered by many to be, at the time, the most trusted voice in America, it was Cronkite's emotional reaction to the landing which many people still remember to this day, possibly due to it adding such a human, emotional element to a technological event taking place so far away.

At the time of the landing in the 1960's, America was at war in Vietnam, undergoing major cultural upheaval with the civil rights movement and had suffered through the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert and Martin Luther King Jr., yet for a brief moment on a summers morning, a quarter of a million miles away from any other human being (except for Collins orbiting above in the Columbia), 2 men looked back at the Earth and saw, what Carl Sagan would described years later as being the place where,

"On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena."


 * Audio clip Buzz Aldrin comments

July 21, 2010
Is it just me, or have all of our reporters moved to Australia? :) Turtlestack (talk) 00:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Astronomers discover largest star on record

 * adding source Astronomers find a 300 solar mass star to add "To put into perspective the size and luminosity of this star, if it were to replace our sun it would be brighter than our sun is of our moon and according to team member Raphael Hirschi from Keele University, "Its high mass would reduce the length of the Earth's year to three weeks, and it would bathe the Earth in incredibly intense ultraviolet radiation, rendering life on our planet impossible," Turtlestack (talk) 00:19, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

On This Day In History

 * Music credit The Dread

In 1919, the Wingfoot Air Express, a dirigible owned by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, crashed into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago in what was, up to that point, the worst dirigible disaster in United States history.

The airship was transporting people from Grant Park to the White City amusement park when it caught fire at about 4:55pm while cruising at an altitude of 1200 feet over the Chicago Loop. When it became clear the dirigible was lost, the pilot, Jack Boettner, and chief mechanic, Harry Wacker, used parachutes to jump to safety. A second mechanic, Henry Weaver, died when his parachute caught fire and another passenger, Earl H. Davenport, a publicity agent for the White City Amusement Park remained in the blimp and died when the airship crashed. A fifth person, photographer E. H. Horton, who parachuted from the dirigible broke both legs and later died at a hospital.

At the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank building at the northeast corner of LaSalle Street and Jackson Boulevard, 150 employees were closing up the day's business in and around the main banking hall, which was illuminated by a large skylight. The remains of the Wingfoot struck the bank's skylight directly and flaming debris fell through to the banking hall below.

According to Harriet Messinger, a switchboard operator, "There was a shadow and I looked up to the roof. Instantly a crash sent the glass flying on [to] the heads of those below. The girls hesitated, many of them stunned by glass or too frightened to run. Then the huge machine came through. It seemed to fill the bank with flames that searched out every corner. The heaviest part, the engines and tanks, fell to the floor and exploded."

The intense heat made rescue operations very difficult and rescue workers had to wait a half an hour before they could get at the horribly burned bodies trapped under the wreckage. In all, ten employees of the bank were killed and another 27 injured.

No official cause of the accident was determined, though the pilot told a New York Times reporter that it might have been caused either by static in the air (as they were unusually high and in less than optimal atmospheric conditions) or that the engines had backfired, creating a spark due to the fuel mixture being "a little too lean".

In the aftermath of the accident, the city of Chicago adopted a new set of rules for aviation over the city and the crash led to the closing of the Grant Park Airstrip and the creation of Chicago Air Park.

Delta Airlines flight makes emergency landing

 * I needed to edit this for flow-

Delta Air Lines flight 1457, departing from Atlanta, made an emergency landing after it blew out a tire during take-off. The flight was carrying approximately 160 passengers and six crew members and was destined to Portland, Oregon.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said that the Boeing 737-800 turned around when the flight crew noticed the blown out tire. The flight was then forced to go into a holding pattern to burn off fuel for more than an hour before it safely landed back at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport at around 3:00pm local time with no injuries being reported at this time.

Delta did not immediately return calls inquiring about the flight, however, Delta Spokesperson Anthony Black told the Associated Press that the 160 passengers on board would be put on a future flight to Portland.

Kosovo independence ruled legal by International Court of Justice

 * Music credit "Motherless" by wellman

On this day in history

 * Music credit Dissolution

Georg Wilhelm Richmann, a German physicist who lived in Russia, was born into a Baltic German family in modern day Estonia. Though his father had died of plague before his birth, his mother remarried and he was allowed to study in Tallinn (the capital and largest city of Estonia but then known as Reval) where he became interested in physics.

After briefly studying in Germany at the universities of Halle and Jena, young Richmann then submitted an essay on physics to the Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg and in 1741 he was elected a member where he did pioneering work on electricity. There, he worked on calorimetry (the science of measuring the heat of chemical reactions or physical changes) and even collaborated with Mikhail Lomonosov (who had discovered that Venus has an atmosphere).


 * Effect credit rbh thunder storm.wav by RHumphries

Then, on August 6, 1753, he was attending a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, when he heard thunder and so ran home with his engraver to capture the event for posterity. At the time he had been hoping to compile a list of bodies arranged by their electrical conductivity.


 * Effect credit JacobsLadderLong2.flac by Halleck

Considered an excellent teacher and researcher, he often arranged demonstrations of electrical phenomena to his students at the Academy, including how electricity effects animals (supposedly by electrocuting them), how the curvature of an object can effect the density of an electric charge and most importantly the properties of electrostatic induction (the redistribution of an electrical charge in an object, caused by the influence of nearby charges.)

But on the night of August 6th, while trying to quantify the response of an insulated rod to the nearby storm, a supposed ball lightning appeared


 * effect credit THE CRASH.wav by sandyrb

and collided with Richmann's head leaving him dead in a red spot. His shoes were blown open, parts of his clothes singed, the engraver knocked out; the door frame of the room was split, and the door itself was torn off its hinges. Reportedly, the ball lightning had traveled along the apparatus causing his unfortunate death.

Richmann thus apparently became the first person in history to die while conducting electrical experiments, a mere single year after Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Ben Franklin's kite experiment from three years previous using a 40-foot-tall iron rod to extract electrical sparks from a cloud.


 * Extra source Russia InfoCenter

Former Illinois Governor Blagojevich rests in corruption trial

 * This story was not on the front page when I refreshed it at 23:59 UTC (cut-off time) Thursday. If it had been, I would have had it on Thursday's show. Turtlestack (talk) 01:13, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Heh...no problem! Benny the mascot (talk) 01:21, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Typhoon kills two in southern China

 * Music credit Desert City

On this day in history

 * Music credit rAga kIravANi

Chandrashekhar Sitaram Tiwari, better known as Chandrasekhar Azad, is one of the most important Indian revolutionaries, was born in 1906 in Unnao dist- Badarka uttar pradesh.

Azad was only 12 years old when, in 1919, the Amritsar massacre occured, where fifty British Indian Army soldiers, under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children. The firing lasted for ten to fifteen minutes, until ammunition was running short leaving 379 dead and 1,100 wounded.

Though he was not invloved in the massacre, he was deeply troubled by it and, in 1921, when Mahatma Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation movement, he actively participated in the protest movement. At the age of 15, he was arrested for his first act of civil disobiedience and when the magistrate asked him his name, he said "Azad" (meaning free). For this, he was sentenced to fifteen lashes. With each stroke of the whip, young Chandrasekhar shouted "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" ["Hail The Motherland!"]. From that point onwards, Chandrashekhar assumed the title of Azad and came to be known as Chandrashekhar Azad and vowing never to be taken alive by the police again.

When Gandhi suspended the struggle in 1922 due to the Chauri Chaura massacre of 22 policemen as he was appalled by the brutal violence, Azad did not feel that violence was unacceptable in such a struggle and he soon became attracted to more aggressive and violent revolutionary ideals and he committed himself to complete Indian independence by any means.

Towards this end, he formed the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, whose goal was full independence and he wanted to build a new India based on socialist principles. He became a mentor to a number of revolutionaries including Sukhdev Thapar, who once wrote a famous letter to Gandhi protesting against his disapproval of revolutionary tactics, and shedding light on the disparities between the two major schools of thought among Indian freedom fighers.


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 * Music credit Veena Kinhal Tribute to Veena Raja Rao

Azad chose the city of Jhansi in northern India for his organisation's hub. In the nearby forest of Orchha, he and his followers set up a shooting range from where they could practice and train and Azad established himself as an excellent marksman. Though he lived their under an alias, he established a good rapport with the local residents and even taught schoolchildren from another nearby village.

From this base of operations, he and his compatriots planned and executed several acts of violence against the British. He was involved in numerous such activities like the Kakori Train Robbery in 1925, the attempt to blow up the Viceroy's train in 1926, as well as the assassinations of prominent figures.

The British soon clamped down on his revolutionary activities and rounded up many of the participants in the train robberies, sentancing them all to death, however Azad elluded capture.

Azad's end eventually came in 1931, at the age of only 24. On February 27th, a Hindi writer/journalist spotted Azad and Sukhdev Thapar discussing some plans and reported their presence to the police. Within a few minutes policemen surrounded the entire park. During the initial encounter, Azad suffered a bullet wound in his thigh, making it difficult for him to escape but he made it possible for Sukhdev to escape by providing him covering fire. After Sukhdev escaped, Azad managed to keep the police at bay for a long time but finally, with only one bullet left in his pistol and being completely surrounded and outnumbered, Chandrashekhar Azad shot himself, keeping his pledge to never be captured alive.


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Azad is today considered a hero in India. Alfred Park, where he died, was renamed Chandrashekhar Azad Park, as were scores of schools, colleges, roads and other public institutions across the now independent nation. Countless films have been made of his life and exploits, a secret file related to Azad is still kept in India's Criminal Investigation Department and the COLT pistol with which he shot himself with is still on display in the Allahabad Museum.